Disruptive POS without the disruption.

Top tips to balancing key challenges in the procurement and marketing world.

Retail channels are becoming unified, and the role of the physical store is changing. Visual communication is becoming more important, and budgets are being squeezed.

So what are the common challenges issues faced by marketing procurement when producing POS at scale and across international markets?

1. Smart procurement of POS means taking control of store data

Clients’ store data (POS sizes, specs, volumes) or partner retailer guidelines are often held by printers and agencies rather than the client themselves.

Take control. Owning and understanding your store data provides control over the procurement process, and allows like-for-like quoting between suppliers and introducing competitive tension.

2. Enjoying the benefits of a centralised procurement model requires buy-in from local marketing teams

Local marketing teams often have legitimate concerns such as:

Centrally procured materials won’t hit local deadlines

The POS won’t be fit for purpose for their local retailers

The creative won’t be relevant and resonate in their market

Central rates seem more expensive than local agency costs when seen in isolation.

Take a collaborative and inclusive approach to centralisation, capturing local retailer guidelines and providing toolkit menus with locally competitive rates. Cultural consultation is critical during creative development to ensure that messaging resonates in all markets.

3. Designing POS that is fit-for-purpose first time can avoid reduce costs and save time

All too often, POS concepts are completely redesigned against the pressure of looming deadlines, sometimes failing to meet retailer guidelines or application is not fit for purpose in a shopper environment.

Understanding the shopper environment is critical, as retail customer guidelines and production processes all inform the design process. It is better when POS design is carried out in tandem with creative development.

4. Standardising POS delivers cost efficiencies, but must be balanced with the need to customise

Shopper toolkits should rationalise POS to a minimum number of pre-approved, pre-tested, retailer compliant designs, in collaboration with local marketing teams.

Self-serve artwork automation tools enable local marketing teams to adapt materials within approved templates, making it possible to reflect a retailer’s look and feel and respond to local challenges, whilst retaining consistent execution across markets.

Many variables influence the effectiveness of POSM (e.g. store location, shopping mission, time of day, weather conditions, etc). Isolating the precise effect of the POS itself means controlling all these variables, making research expensive and results difficult to replicate.

Many organisations take a siloed approach to procurement, meaning category communications are considered separately and challenges are solved in isolation. This results in duplicated effort and inefficiencies in the production process.

Brands now need to maintain a single conversation with their customers and deliver consistent brand experience, so a holistic approach to the procurement process is critical to finding cost savings in the supply chain and exploiting synergies across categories and channels.